Senator Paschal Mooney said the multi-agency approach to dealing with flooding had not worked and should be abandoned in favour of a single agency approach. Senator Feargal Quinn agreed and also called for the establishment of a Shannon river basin authority. The Minister of State, Deputy Simon Harris, spoke comprehensively about the issue and said the Government was doing everything possible to deal with the problem. The money required, some €430 million, is in place in the capital plan for flood defences.

Senator Feargal Quinn mentioned the success of Holland and is quite right. In Holland €1 billion per annum is being spent on flood defences. Whether we could afford to spend anything like that sum is very questionable and to compare Ireland to Holland is a little unfair. We should join Senator Ivana Bacik and others in complimenting all of the volunteers, local authority workers and the emergency services on the work they are doing in the communities throughout the country which have been hit so badly by flooding.

Senator Paschal Mooney also spoke about the fact that there were fewer gardaí, with over 700 fewer in Dublin. We will have the Minister for Justice and Equality in the House to take a number of Bills this week, with particular reference to the burglary of dwellings Bill, Second Stage of which has been completed. We will take Committee and Remaining Stages this week and there will be ample time to debate the issue with the Minister. It is, however, a bit rich for Senator Paschal Mooney to talk about there being 700 fewer gardaí in Dublin when his party closed the Garda Training College in Templemore and there was no further recruitment of gardaí.